Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Rico Self Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Rico Self recently received the 2021 Gerald R. Miller Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award from the National Communication Association (NCA).

Given annually, the award recognizes new scholars who completed outstanding dissertations during the previous academic year. Self received the award for the dissertation completed at Louisiana State University, “Ties That Bind: Black Familyness and the Politics of Contingent Coalitions.” This dissertation covers the timely and important issues of race, gender, and intersectionality. This study expands upon ongoing developments of Black Queer Studies in Communication. In this dissertation, Self examines the historical and cultural significance of Black Familyness and features a unique, cutting edge perspective of Black Queer Studies as the analytic. This dissertation complicates disciplinary approaches to understanding Black and African American identities and spaces. This critical rhetorical work expounds on race, gender, queer, and intersectional approaches to Communication.

“NCA’s annual awards honor Communication scholars’ teaching, scholarship, and service,” NCA Interim Executive Director Linda Taliaferro, CAE, said. “NCA is proud to recognize Dr. Self’s significant contributions to the Communication discipline with this award.”

Self’s award will be presented on November 20 at the NCA 107th Annual Convention in Seattle, WA. For more information about NCA’s awards program, visit http://www.natcom.org/awards/.

About the National Communication Association

The National Communication Association (NCA) advances Communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media, and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific, and aesthetic inquiry. NCA serves the scholars, teachers, and practitioners who are its members by enabling and supporting their professional interests in research and teaching. Dedicated to fostering and promoting free and ethical communication, NCA promotes the widespread appreciation of the importance of communication in public and private life, the application of competent communication to improve the quality of human life and relationships, and the use of knowledge about communication to solve human problems. NCA supports inclusiveness and diversity among our faculties, within our membership, in the workplace, and in the classroom; NCA supports and promotes policies that fairly encourage this diversity and inclusion.

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